


Seen Through the Veil

by Meatball42



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bruce Banner's Huge Bag of Weed, First Time, First time gettin' high that is!, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Marijuana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Steve takes a hit (not his usual kind) and admires some… art.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Kudos: 38
Collections: 420 Fanworks Fest





	Seen Through the Veil

Bruce is a genius, and Steve is happy. He’s so happy it feels like he might float away.

Steve likes history, and ever since they smoked the ‘super-ganja’ Bruce grew in his lab, Bruce has talked about nothing but history. Art history, specifically, which is Steve’s _thing_. Steve is an artist. So someone like Bruce, who is brilliant, and knowledgeable, and informed and educated, and, just, eloquent, Bruce is so eloquent, talking about art… It's Heaven to listen to him talk. And Steve listens for… such a long time.

And now he finds himself in the stairwell, which is great, because he’s gotten such inspiration from Bruce’s impromptu lecture. He knows exactly what inspiration he needs. Bruce was talking about the configuration of art over time, something about architecture and culture and economic ideologies, but all Steve could think about was the built environment and how everything created was art in some way…

What's his password again? He's at the door to Tony’s lab, and that's… in the right direction. Not there yet. Steve closes his eyes and his fingers move over the pad all by themselves.

It worked! How fantastic! He's in. And Tony, of course, lovely Tony, Tony who always glares at him just right, not backing down, stubborn and brilliant and bright, Tony is here, in his usual seat at his bench, doing—well, something incredible, surely. Steve takes a glance at the science images in the air in blue (images in the air in blue, wow, how about that for inspiration?) and promptly his eyes cross, because they're so complex.

How does Tony even begin to understand all that? Steve has an innate sense of the way things work together, half cynical and half outsider’s view, understanding without participating, but Tony, he's deep inside, breathing the knowledge that can’t come without embodying the art, superseding the structure, living the motion, and there is nothing more admirable to Steve than someone who _is_ the entirety of their chosen form, or field. Bucky was like that, with a gun, but given the choice he’d have left it behind. Tony left behind weapons, but he still has that God-given gift of creation with other things, and that…

Steve stares at Tony, who watches him back, eyes wide in shock and then confusion, lips parted. When he stands up and comes to Steve, there's nothing but grace in his movements. He's like an angel, created for beauty, sublime, perfection. Steve peers closer at those incredible eyes, the color that spurs his muse, that led him to this lab, and wonders at the extremity of God’s creation, that such perfection could exist on Earth, that such perfection is granted to the sight of those on Earth, the artists and the soldiers and boys from Brooklyn alike. Tony is a masterpiece.

Tony is stepping close to Steve, oh, could anything be better than such a wonder nearing him? Tony guides Steve with an arm under his arm, and of course Steve will go anywhere Tony wants to lead him. Where their bodies are pressed close together he feels such an amazing sensation… he would go wherever Tony led him… 

Steve follows the molasses-rich tones of Tony’s voice as it calmly rambles, his chocolate-sweet chuckle…

  
  


Steve wakes up feeling like a truck hit him. He’s exhausted, he has a crick in his neck from sleeping wrong, and his body is more tired than after he took down a battalion of Nazis.

He makes himself a plate of eggs and eats them slowly along with four cups of water. Then he makes another plate of eggs and a plate of toast and eats it with two cups of milk. Then he eats two bananas. Only then does he start to feel like everything’s in working order.

It’s nearly 9am, longer than Steve has ever slept in since moving into Stark Tower. He wonders why no one has inquired through Jarvis, or at least texted him to see what—

Oh. Oh no.

  
  


Alarms don’t go off as he walks down the hall toward Tony’s lab. That has to be a good sign, right? Steve punches in his code tentatively, remembering how he slumped over the keypad last night, woozy and uncoordinated.

The doors open for him.

“Tony?” he calls nervously.

“In here.”

Steve approaches the storage closet (which is really its own room, larger than Steve’s own bedroom). He hears tools clanking.

They nearly collide as Tony exits the room with a big red toolbox. Steve does an awkward shuffle to the side and Tony swings the case around the other way by the handle. Steve nearly trips over his own feet.

Tony is wearing a white tank top that he has sweated through in some places, and his arms and shoulder flex as he maneuvers the toolbox. When he looks over at Steve a lock of hair falls into his face.

“Good morning sunshine,” he teases.

Steve shuts his mouth.

“Late start to the day?” Tony continues in the same tone. He brings the toolbox over to a workbench and lifts it up. The muscles in his back flex and Steve has to clear his throat.

“Uh, yeah. Tony, about last night… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Aww, it’s no problem, Cap. So you got baked with Bruce, I’m actually pretty impressed. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Steve opts to ignore that. “Still, it can’t have been fun to have me rambling on about art for however long.” Steve scrubs the back of his head, feeling a blush coming forward.

Tony huffs a little laugh. “What?”

“I know you’re more of a science guy. I imagine it was annoying. Bruce was talking about…” Steve frowns. “Well, I don’t actually remember. But it was very interesting, and it got me thinking about the kind of art you do. Everything you make is so dynamically crafted and balanced. The aesthetic is amazing.” He flushes fully. “I’m so sorry, I’m rambling again.”

Tony rests his elbow on the toolbox and leans over it with his hand on his chin. “I’m not offended that you like my tech, everyone does. But this is all news to me, you didn’t talk about art at all last night.”

“Really?” Steve asks. “But…”

Tony smirks, and if he were a cat he would be the Cheshire Cat, complete with a swinging tail. “Last night,” he says, drawing it out in amusement, “you grabbed my face, stared deep into my eyes, and whispered _‘How?’_ like four times.”

Oh. Oh _no._

“Tony, I—I can’t even begin to apologize—”

Full-on grinning now, Tony walks around the workbench and approaches him. “Like I said, I’m not offended. But it does make me wonder…”

He comes to a stop in front of Steve and runs a finger down his chest, looking up at Steve with his warm brown eyes under those long lashes.

“...if there’s something else you’re into. _Aesthetically._ ”

Steve’s breath comes short. “I… um…”

Tony pulls him down for a kiss and Steve stops trying to string his thoughts together.

Apparently, things work out for the best when he goes with the flow.


End file.
